


雪冤 (Or, the Absolution of Portgas D. Ace)

by The_Florian_Triangle



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Angst With A Bittersweet Ending, Gen, HI FUN WARNING BOTH ACE AND DEUCE START OUT VERY MUCH DEAD, M/M, Marineford Arc, Post-Marineford, its gonna hurt boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:13:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23832193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Florian_Triangle/pseuds/The_Florian_Triangle
Summary: “Oh, you dropped something.” An ensign ran up to him, carrying a notebook. It was small and soft with use, and ink stained the blue leather of the cover in countless fingerprints and smudges. Coby frowned, taking the book.“This isn’t-“ But the ensign was gone. Coby sighed, looking at the body slung over his shoulder.“Was this yours?”
Relationships: Masked Deuce & Portgas D. Ace
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	雪冤 (Or, the Absolution of Portgas D. Ace)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay I now have a One Piece Ao3 account!! Hi guys!

There had been one man that they hadn’t been able to drag away. One man that had wrenched his arm from the grasp of the Phoenix, tearing the sleeve of his well-preserved jacket clean off. One man that had stayed behind, cradling the body of his captain. The war was over. There was nothing they could do. 

Coby didn’t hear the shot more than he felt it, rippling out in a wave of something that hurt like gratitude. He didn’t see the man crumple more than he heard it, the dull thump of carrion on carrion, the last death on the battlefield of the war at Marineford. It wasn’t honorable to die like this. It wasn’t satisfying. Disgust rippled through the Marines. 

Having lost his favor with the Red Dog (if he had ever had any, that is), Coby was ordered to bring the body to one of the mass graves they were blasting in the sides of the rock. _Cowards burying cowards,_ someone had sneered at him. It didn’t feel right. Coby thought that what the man in the green jacket had done had been braver than anything. What were the values that would frame the body over his shoulder a coward?

“Oh, you dropped something.” An ensign ran up to him, carrying a notebook. It was small and soft with use, and ink stained the blue leather of the cover in countless fingerprints and smudges. Coby frowned, taking the book. 

“This isn’t-“ But the ensign was gone. Coby sighed, looking at the body slung over his shoulder.

“Was this yours?” He almost entertained waiting for an answer. It felt wrong to rob a dead man, but Coby had to admit he was curious. Maybe it was his. Wouldn’t that be something. A memoir, maybe, or a last bitter letter to the system that had made him turn to piracy? An explanation of his decisions? 

Whatever, it was probably porn. Coby carefully set the body on top of the pile, looking at him long and intently. Why did he want to remember this man’s face? Helmeppo took his shoulder. 

“Hey,” he murmured. “I’m going in. Come on.” 

“Just a second,” Coby said quietly, leaning over the pile and closing the man’s eyes. “Who do you think he was?” Helmeppo shrugged. 

“Why do you care?” 

“I don’t know.” Coby stood up, stretching a little. “I think he’s brave.” 

“Getting shot isn’t bravery, you know. I think you’re in shock. Come on.” As he walked away, Coby ran his thumb over the spine of the ink-stained book in his pants pocket. Even if it was porn, it wasn’t like the brave man in the green jacket would have any use for it.

“His name was Deuce,” Coby said aloud to Helmeppo, who sighed.

“You’re still on this topic?”

“Entertain me.” Coby flipped through a few pages. “Whoa, he was with Ace-san for _years._ ”

“Ace-san?” Coby ignored him. 

“Masked Deuce. Like Ace and Deuce, like cards, isn’t it?”

“He’s bloody dead.”

“Shut up and listen to me. He’s got a whole letter here.” Coby cleared his throat. “ _The Absolution of Portgas D. Ace.”_

_My name is Masked Deuce. I am currently a member of the First Division of the Whitebeard Pirates, under Marco the Phoenix. If you’re reading this, something has inevitably happened to me, or I have lost this book, or maybe something else. As I write this, we are sailing towards Marineford to attempt to end the execution of Portgas D. Ace, my former captain. It is there that I am sure that certain things will be said that will not only change the course of our life, but will also change the course of history itself. If we succeed, no one should read these pages but myself. If we die, and I will not leave him to die alone, this is what will come of it. I don’t want to just leave behind bones._

“He didn’t succeed, though.”

“That’s why we’re reading it! Now shush.”

_Portgas D. Ace’s crime is not against the law. I know it sounds ridiculous to say, seeing that he’s a pirate and all, but what they’re intending to hinge his execution on will not be a crime in and of itself._

“He got that right,” Helmeppo mused. 

“This is so much better than porn,” Coby muttered to himself.

_Ace is not the son of his father, but the son of Whitebeard. No marine, no civilian, no other pirate could loathe Gol D. Roger more than his own son. It is indeed likely that if this absurd obsession over bloodlines was not normalized by the government, Ace would have never become a pirate at all. In the events following his attempted execution, no matter what they are, the press will spin things to reflect the government’s point of view. This is a natural course of action._

_I have tried to kill him for something as petty and needless as my own survival on an island that would have killed me. He gave no thought to my betrayal, and shared precious food with me. Ace is not Gol D. Roger incarnate, and I will say this until after I am dead. He is a kind, gentle, dependable, radiant human being, and to know him is to love him. He falls asleep in his food. He plays the guitar. He has a pet cat. I will scream this from the rooftops- Portgas D. Ace is a person._

_So I am begging this reader, whoever they are, to publish this book. In it you will find a full log of the side of the pirates that the Marines, for all their airs about justice, do not want the world to see. Not every pirate is good. Most of them aren’t. But to execute someone for a thing that they can’t possibly hope to change isn’t right. And to try to extinguish my captain is even worse. If you are reading this, it is my last request that this come to light._

_Sincerely,_

_Masked Deuce_

_Whitebeard-Spade_

For all his exhaustion and trauma, Coby stayed up into the early light reading the book. It was perhaps the littlest things that made him cry. He would occasionally shake Helmeppo awake and read to him excitedly about Thatch dressing up as a woman and nearly getting married off by accident, or Marco stoically refusing to treat paper cuts despite fervent begging, or Haruta’s pranks, or any of the pages upon pages that Deuce took to describe Ace. His eyes, his hair, his wonder at a new technique. How his smile could light up the ocean and make it seem like day during night. What he looked like hurt, or angry, or sad, or depressed. What he looked like happy, or pleased with something, or showing off his brother’s bounty, and how desperately the second division loved him. 

_No one could love him as much as I did. Well, maybe Marco and Thatch. Or that Luffy that acts like a monkey._

Coby laughed, thrilled. He read through Blackbeard’s betrayal and Thatch’s death, and cried. Cried harder when Deuce took intimate detail in describing how much blame Ace took on himself.

In the morning, he took the book to the printers. In the morning, he bribed the newspaper editor with all of his savings to print the contents of the book. The newspaper went out, and the damage was done. 

Coby walked to the mass grave. 

Rocks had been collapsed over it, and he knew that there was no way to reach the brave man in the green jacket. Masked Deuce. Who had loved so violently and fully, who hadn’t been able to live without the man he held so unbelievably dear. It was a love that Coby wanted to understand. He placed a hand on the rock. 

“You won’t just leave behind bones.”


End file.
